LITMIR.BIZ

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had wed a lovely maid, so the story went, until one cold night her body was found floating among the reeds in his moat. It was said he caught her with a lover, and in his rage hurled her from the top of the keep. The dead girl had probably been close to her own age. A shudder convulsed Ceridwen and she pressed her arm against the rising clamor of her wound as the horse’s motion rocked her to and fro.

      Raymond wrapped his woolen mantle more closely about her body. She shrank from his touch and yet relished the warmth. No doubt he could be charming when he chose to be. Charming but so very wicked. When he gathered up the reins, she saw that the fingers of his gauntlets were soggy and dark. Blood-soaked.

      Her blood as well as the villein’s. Her heart protested, but there was no escaping the truth. This man had saved her life, and she was beholden to him. She also belonged to him, even if he did not yet realize it. But for a little time, she could pretend freedom.

      For hours they wound through the hilly forest, climbing slowly. She tried to avoid resting against him, but it proved impossible. Her head fell back onto his shoulder when she was too tired to hold it up, and after the first few times he stopped shrugging her off. Her fear gradually eased with the soothing rhythm of the horse’s walk, and her own exhaustion. She drifted in and out of wakefulness, watching the bright sky pale above the silhouettes of swaying treetops.

      The daylight waned, and the thick smell of damp leaves gave way to a fresher crispness as they traveled higher. The wind sang through the rowans. If she had not been in such pain, or known who held her, it might have been a pleasant journey.

      The harsh caw of rooks and the hollow thud of hooves on a drawbridge startled Ceridwen into alertness. Men shouted greetings. She looked up in time to see a corpse gently swaying. It hung in an iron cage from a gibbet on the outer curtain wall of what must be Sir Raymond’s keep—Rookhaven, and well named. A row of ravens perched on the battlements above the body. Ceridwen covered her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut until they were past the gruesome sight. A prenuptial Welsh patriot, perhaps. A fitting adornment to the castle of a Beauchamp.

      They passed beneath the spikes of the portcullis and into the main ward of a dark, crumbling edifice. Not what she expected of such a lord. Anxiety mixed with the dread already churning in the pit of her stomach. Like the tower before her, her promise to marry him loomed as an impossible monstrosity.

      Men bearing hissing torches hurried to meet them and held the bridle of his restive animal as Raymond dismounted. He caught Ceridwen and carried her with long, rapid strides across the cobbled courtyard and up the narrow stairs of the keep.

      Heavy, ironclad doors opened before them as servants and men-at-arms scurried to seek their master’s will. There were bows and murmured welcomes, all of which he ignored. His attention, it seemed, was now fixed upon her alone.

      Sir Raymond’s arms were hard beneath her shoulders and knees, his steps sure and silent. A faint smell of roasted fowl lingered in the air above the reek of the hall, and despite her pain and weariness, Ceridwen’s mouth watered. She looked up past Raymond’s face, avoiding his frowning gaze.

      The upper reaches of the large hall disappeared into gloom, and though a fire crackled in the center of the floor, it made little impact on either the cold or the dark. A stout, wrinkle-faced woman hurried over and touched Ceridwen’s cheek with the back of her hand. The crone peered at her in the light of the fat candle she held.

      “Welcome to Rookhaven, lass. ’Tis Alys am I, and who’ll see ye to bed.” The woman’s gap-toothed smile vanished as she turned her attention to Raymond. “What have ye done? Her neck’s purple. Her face is all bruised. Hmmph!”

      The knight exchanged looks with the old woman. Hers was one of disapproval. His was unreadable, except for the unrelenting tightness around his mouth. He swept past her and took Ceridwen into a small chamber, fragrant with mint. Carefully he laid her on a narrow bed, but her relief was short-lived. Raymond threw down his bloodstained gauntlets and began to unbind her wound.

      “You are overly familiar, sir. Take your hands from me,” Ceridwen whispered, too drained to meet his eyes. Under the circumstances, he was not likely to believe her if she claimed to be his betrothed. But it was her duty to tell him the truth, and he had no right to manhandle the daughter of Morgan ap Madog.

      Raymond paused at her objection, threw her a quelling look as she opened her mouth to reveal her name, then continued with his task. He gave up on her lacings and simply ripped the fabric, using the hole his sword had made as a starting point.

      Ceridwen shrieked and tried to pull away.

      “Jesu, woman! You’re worse than any eel.” Mercilessly he held her to the position he desired, using his knee on her thighs and his elbow across her chest. “I would see for myself what damage I have done. I do not trust the reports of others.”

      Ceridwen gritted her teeth as his fingers probed her wound.

      “I am sorry to hurt you. But have no fear for your modesty. I look upon thee as I would any wounded creature.”

      “I am not a creature!” She squirmed and bucked in spite of the pain. “I am—”

      “Tsk. My lord Raymond. ’Tis but a young lass here ye have. She’ll not be understanding yer ways,” the crone chided, her chins wagging.

      “Nor has she any need to understand. Her only duty to me is to lie still.” He directed his last two words to Ceridwen, writhing beneath his hands.

      “She has no duty to ye a-tall!”

      “Alys, you try my patience.” His eyes gleamed a warning to the old nurse.

      She glared back. “Be that as it may, young master Raymond, ye’re not needed here. In fact, ye’re in the way.”

      Ceridwen marvelled at the woman’s familiar treatment of her sinister lord. She thought she heard a low growl sounding from Sir Raymond’s throat, but her own pain distracted her. Abruptly his warm hands left her abdomen, and his knee lifted from her legs. The large bulk of Alys overshadowed her, clucking and muttering as she applied a pungent salve to the wound.

      Ceridwen turned her head and fixed her gaze on the retreating back of the dark knight. The play of candlelight glanced off the mail covering his arms. The heavy, deep blue fabric of his surcoat rippled dully. As he reached the door, he pulled his coif from his head. With a small shock she saw that he was fair. Thick, brassy hair, with a tawny brown beneath the light outer layers, like an animal’s pelt, tumbled past his shoulders.

      Similar to Alonso, yet wholly different. Haughty, aye. But Ceridwen was surprised to sense no vanity in this Beauchamp. He was neither as tall nor as broad as his elder brother. But he commanded a powerful, forbidding presence that had nothing to do with size. A fair-haired knight. A black horse. Bloody hands. She swallowed as her memory stirred. Long ago Owain had told her a story, of a maiden who met just such a man. At the time, she had thought it a tale of his own imagining. But Owain had known of things to come, and saw things hidden—had it been a warning? Now she could not remember how it ended.

      Raymond turned and regarded her over his shoulder. Their eyes met, and for an instant Ceridwen thought she felt compassion sing across the room to her. Then his handsome face shuttered, the light extinguished like a candle snuffed out by a cold wind.

      She blinked, and Raymond vanished into the darkness beyond the door. Tomorrow. She would tell him her name tomorrow.

      Chapter Four

      “Damn. Damn. Thrice be damned!” Raymond cursed his way up a dank stairway of his ancient fortress, his wolfhound padding alongside. He had never bothered to improve upon the meager comforts of his keep, and drafts blew freely in the stone halls. Cobwebs were the only hangings to soften the chill.

      The wench was trouble. A whole realm of it. A shudder of longing coursed through him at the remembrance of her fine features and delicate bones. Just as Meribel’s had been. Raymond pushed his lady’s visage back and it merged into that of the wounded maiden. She was exquisite, despite the

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